


Before the Burning Ardor

by Sforzie



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurotine Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst, F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Non-Graphic Smut, Past Lives, Persephone Goes Willingly With Hades (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Pining, slight Roman Empire references because that is the author's thing, third umbral calamity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23412022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sforzie/pseuds/Sforzie
Summary: In the final days before the Third Umbral Calamity, Emet-Selch seeks out the one he lost in the Sundering.---He follows at a safe distance as she peruses the market stalls. Three shards, he thinks, but even that small amount is brilliant and blinding and enough to make his soul’s heart ache.---
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Before the Burning Ardor

It is in the final days of a dying empire that Emet-Selch finds her. The failing of the Empire is his own making, but he is not particularly cross over the matter. This one was just for practice, he tells himself, he will do much better with the next one. It matters for naught if this one thrived or failed. Already the next Rejoining has begun: the weather grows dryer and hotter, and the ground beneath the simple shattered peoples of the land creaks and groans and threatens to burst open.

It is in the midst of this growing failure that he finds her, and it stokes a heat in him ever greater than the oncoming Ardor. He has to follow her for an hour to be certain that he is not mistaken. With the destruction of Amaurot still so fresh and painful in his memory, there has just not been enough time for enough of her to come together again. He follows at a safe distance as she peruses the market stalls. Three shards, he thinks, but even that small amount is brilliant and blinding and enough to make his soul’s heart ache. 

He had promised himself, after the sundering, that when he found her, he would just watch her. He knew that one day there would be enough of her Rejoined to remember him, to smile at the sound of his voice, to reach for him in the dark and desperately call his name. Call his, as he has called hers so many times before. But he musn’t, he promised he would wait--

He cannot wait. He is weak and needs her.

She is a young thing, barely past her eighteenth nameday, lucky if she will live to see her nineteenth before the sky falls on their heads. Her stola is sleeveless, compensated for by a thin shawl draped over her head and narrow shoulders to protect her from the sun. Her face is beautiful, like one of the painted statues at the temples. He loves it immediately, even though it is not the face he remembers her wearing before. It is close enough, and as he feigns a stumble into her, she looks up at him. Her aether shines in her eyes, and he wonders how none of the mortals around her can see the azure glow.

“Oh, my apologies, dear miss, I did not see where I was walking.”

She tips her head to the side, shy, wary--in this empire’s culture a young unmarried woman such as she would be subject to the absolute rule of her father. He isn’t sure he likes that rule, and thinks he may change it for the next empire. He wants her to be able to bloom, time and again, as she did for him in Amaurot.

The Light in her recoils at his presence, but she is too incomplete to notice. Her lips, full and vaguely familiar, finally curve into a smile. “It is alright. The market is very crowded today.” She squints at him for a moment. “Have we met? You seem familiar. Are you a business associate of my father’s?”

More than you know, he thinks, and smiles back. “Perhaps I am. You can call me Solus.”

The squint remains, and something about the way her eyes sweep down his nose and lips and stop at the pin holding his cloak in place is so familiar, so  _ her _ , that it nearly disarms him from the body he is using.

“That isn’t your real name,” she says.

“Does it matter if it is? I am but a traveler, and will be gone in a few days time.”

“I suppose it does not.” Her gaze darts around the busy marketplace before settling on his chin. “Have you a room here in the City, traveler?”

“Aye, I do.”

Her smile turns coy, and she looks up at him through her dark lashes. “Might I visit it?”

He does not turn her down. He cannot turn her down. He needs her too much. He does not know if her willingness is her own, or if it belongs to the traces of the past lingering in her wayward soul. He does not care, either will do for him right now.

The remainder of the day passes in the little room he has rented. She blooms under his touches, and for several minutes he is struck dumb by her radiance. He cannot recall if she was like this before, or if the darkness of his Lord had tainted his perception of such graces.

He does not care. He abandons all pretense of observation and lays with her. He leaves his body’s seed in her, time and again through the afternoon, until it escapes along her trembling thighs and stains the couch. There is no need for concern. Were it even possible for anything to sprout from their joining, the roots would never take hold, burning out with her and the rest of the world in only a short while.

She stirs from the couch when the walls of his room are painted pink with the dusk. She is quiet as she redresses, and then thanks him for the lovely afternoon.

“I hope your travels bring you back to the City sometime,” she says. He smiles at her, and hopes for the same impossible future.

“I will see you again, someday,” he promises her. 

Then she leaves, hurrying to get home before dark. He turns his face away from the window before her silhouette departs from his sight. He knows the flames will arrive ere long, and he cannot bear to watch her die again. Not this soon.

He already misses her.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly guys I am just a weak, incomplete being who cannot exist near a fandom without eventually dragging it through the Roman empire.


End file.
